Happy 80th Birthday Gloria Steinem!

Today is a special day, because today Gloria Steinem, pioneering women’s rights activist celebrates her 80th birthday. I’ve already written about why this day is so special to me, but the other day, a quote landed in my inbox that reminded me of why I love and respect Gloria so much.

“For most of human history, we’ve been sitting around campfires telling stories. This is how we teach, learn, empathize, and discover both our uniqueness and our community. This is why our brains are organized by narrative and by image. This is how we see what we can be. This is how we understand what might be possible.

But if our story is not present in some form, we feel alone, wrong, even invisible. After all, we are communal animals, which is why isolation is the most severe punishment.

This is why there’s nothing more important than feeling seen and heard at the campfire.” – Gloria Steinem

This quote connects in to one of other favorite ones – “The history of the world is determined less by battles lost and won than by the stories we come to love and believe in.” I don’t think I’ll ever stop being in awe of this incredible woman, and the fact that at 80 years old Gloria is still working hard to ensure that women and girls have a seat around that campfire is beyond inspiring to me, and I know to so many other people around the world as well.

All month I have been tweeting out my favorite Gloria quotes with the hashtag #WWGD, a hashtag that was created at the Makers Conference earlier this year, meaning “What Would Gloria Do?” I encourage you to join in the conversation, as well as sending your birthday wishes to Gloria directly either through the Women’s Media Center, of which Gloria is a founding member, or by tweeting to @GloriaSteinem. We should all celebrate the achievements of this remarkable woman, because what Gloria has done for women, and therefore for the world, is extraordinary. Happy Birthday Gloria !